Here is a letter that I just wrote to a well-known colleague. What do you guys think about it?
Hey Jean,
I would love to talk to you about this some time when you have the time.
I'm now a believer that the female (person or dog) is always better off with their ovaries UNLESS they are on a high estrogen diet, like the vast majority of dogs and people are at this time. AS you know, dairy, gluten grains and soy are all loaded with estrogens. Dairy...particularly milk...is also rich in progesterone, which breaks down into androgen, the excess of which...namely the break down products of...is the underlying cause of male pattern baldness. No wonder the USA has so many bald guys compared to other countries and ancient civilizations, eh? We have 19 year olds now with receding hair lines. Whazzup wit' that??? Rogaine anyone? And no one seems to talk about the 6000+ men that get breast cancer each year.
We also know that endometriosis, polycystic ovaries and breast cancer are mainly estrogen-related disorders, right? But spaying them to control this is like removing their legs so that they don't get out into traffic and get HBC. There are better ways. I certainly don't believe that the female's normal estrogen alone is enough to set the stage for the virus that causes breast cancer. It is much more likely to be the sum total of what they are producing AND consuming that does this, with consumption including the food sources (as those above) and those from the environment. Thank God there are estrogen BLOCKING foods, none of which the dog gets regularly except for rice.
So, I am a firm believer that if dogs were left unspayed (non-ovarectomized) and placed on low estrogen diets (rice and potato-based with little to no chicken*** that we would not see mammary cancer, especially since we have stopped using most of those ugly insecticides with STRONG estrogenic activity. (***Fact- Chicken is now the second richest source of estrogen in our diet thanks to what we are feeding them. It's not just the celiac who is now in trouble eating chicken.) And now that we KNOW the damaging effects of early spaying, we can see that we have helped prevent the incidence of mammary cancer at the expense of just about everything else (early allergies, worsened immune mediated diseases, and higher cancer rates).
If we agree that spaying before the first heat cycle or before being fully grown is a bad thing, then when is the ideal time? Can we say with all certainty that at 14 months, 2 years, 4 years, etc. that they can now safely live without their ovaries and testicles? I personally don't think that we have any "spare" organs. Therefore, it makes more sense to me that they keep them for life unless they become diseased, whihc they should not if we do enough right dietarily and environmentally.
But we DO have to be concerned about unwanted pregnancy, thus the idea of vasectomy and hysterectomy without removal of the gonads. Yes, the dogs will continue to cycle but with little discharge. The CATS are the big hang-up. Who in the their right mind wants to live with a cat in heat??? LOL But, we are having this dilemma because we have chosen to bring animals into our homes, something none of us want to give up. So, we have to make some kind of sacrifice somewhere, right? Thank Goodness the cats are generally healthier than dogs, greatly due to their "finicky" appetites. Hey, they know what's good for them unless they get addicted to a food.
I just think we need to really think through and study the effects of doing hysterectomies alone (vs OVH) on dogs IF we don't think we can gather enough data from the countless women that have had this done. The "wild card" is the diet. We know soooooo much more about the dietary effects of the "big 4" foods now, including their estrogenic effects. Knowing that cow milk and soy have been directly implicated in many of the estrogen-related disorders, how much better would all of these women have done if they had been on low estrogen diets? Now throw in the gluten grains (that are rich in estrogenic activity) and the environmental estrogens and we can see that the ones the body makes are the least of our worries. In fact, the naturally produced estrogens help to protect the body against the harmful mimics that we are consuming. We must keep in mind that phytoestrogens come in two "sizes"- lignans and isoflavones. It is the latter that we have to learn the dangerous truth about. (e.g http://www.soyonlineservice.co.nz/04phytoestrogens.htm).
Well, this went a lot longer than I planned. Just got wound up. (Surprise, surprise.) But hey, it will make a good post on one of the forums I write on. LOL.
Lemme know what you think when you get the time.
John
John B. Symes, D.V.M. ("Dogtor J")
www.dogtorj.net
Read- "Food Intolerance- Man and Animals versus Gluten, Casein, Soy, and Corn OR How We Won the Battle of Helm's Deep"
Deep"
Hey Jean,
I would love to talk to you about this some time when you have the time.
I'm now a believer that the female (person or dog) is always better off with their ovaries UNLESS they are on a high estrogen diet, like the vast majority of dogs and people are at this time. AS you know, dairy, gluten grains and soy are all loaded with estrogens. Dairy...particularly milk...is also rich in progesterone, which breaks down into androgen, the excess of which...namely the break down products of...is the underlying cause of male pattern baldness. No wonder the USA has so many bald guys compared to other countries and ancient civilizations, eh? We have 19 year olds now with receding hair lines. Whazzup wit' that??? Rogaine anyone? And no one seems to talk about the 6000+ men that get breast cancer each year.
We also know that endometriosis, polycystic ovaries and breast cancer are mainly estrogen-related disorders, right? But spaying them to control this is like removing their legs so that they don't get out into traffic and get HBC. There are better ways. I certainly don't believe that the female's normal estrogen alone is enough to set the stage for the virus that causes breast cancer. It is much more likely to be the sum total of what they are producing AND consuming that does this, with consumption including the food sources (as those above) and those from the environment. Thank God there are estrogen BLOCKING foods, none of which the dog gets regularly except for rice.
So, I am a firm believer that if dogs were left unspayed (non-ovarectomized) and placed on low estrogen diets (rice and potato-based with little to no chicken*** that we would not see mammary cancer, especially since we have stopped using most of those ugly insecticides with STRONG estrogenic activity. (***Fact- Chicken is now the second richest source of estrogen in our diet thanks to what we are feeding them. It's not just the celiac who is now in trouble eating chicken.) And now that we KNOW the damaging effects of early spaying, we can see that we have helped prevent the incidence of mammary cancer at the expense of just about everything else (early allergies, worsened immune mediated diseases, and higher cancer rates).
If we agree that spaying before the first heat cycle or before being fully grown is a bad thing, then when is the ideal time? Can we say with all certainty that at 14 months, 2 years, 4 years, etc. that they can now safely live without their ovaries and testicles? I personally don't think that we have any "spare" organs. Therefore, it makes more sense to me that they keep them for life unless they become diseased, whihc they should not if we do enough right dietarily and environmentally.
But we DO have to be concerned about unwanted pregnancy, thus the idea of vasectomy and hysterectomy without removal of the gonads. Yes, the dogs will continue to cycle but with little discharge. The CATS are the big hang-up. Who in the their right mind wants to live with a cat in heat??? LOL But, we are having this dilemma because we have chosen to bring animals into our homes, something none of us want to give up. So, we have to make some kind of sacrifice somewhere, right? Thank Goodness the cats are generally healthier than dogs, greatly due to their "finicky" appetites. Hey, they know what's good for them unless they get addicted to a food.
I just think we need to really think through and study the effects of doing hysterectomies alone (vs OVH) on dogs IF we don't think we can gather enough data from the countless women that have had this done. The "wild card" is the diet. We know soooooo much more about the dietary effects of the "big 4" foods now, including their estrogenic effects. Knowing that cow milk and soy have been directly implicated in many of the estrogen-related disorders, how much better would all of these women have done if they had been on low estrogen diets? Now throw in the gluten grains (that are rich in estrogenic activity) and the environmental estrogens and we can see that the ones the body makes are the least of our worries. In fact, the naturally produced estrogens help to protect the body against the harmful mimics that we are consuming. We must keep in mind that phytoestrogens come in two "sizes"- lignans and isoflavones. It is the latter that we have to learn the dangerous truth about. (e.g http://www.soyonlineservice.co.nz/04phytoestrogens.htm).
Well, this went a lot longer than I planned. Just got wound up. (Surprise, surprise.) But hey, it will make a good post on one of the forums I write on. LOL.
Lemme know what you think when you get the time.
John
John B. Symes, D.V.M. ("Dogtor J")
www.dogtorj.net
Read- "Food Intolerance- Man and Animals versus Gluten, Casein, Soy, and Corn OR How We Won the Battle of Helm's Deep"
Deep"